The Book Firefox

The Book FireFox

Thu 20 Aug 2009, 19:42 0 Comment(s)

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My readers one of my all-time favorite books is Firefox. It's a novel. In the novel, an American pilot, Mitchell Gant is shot down over North Vietnam. He watches his "back seater" die. When he lands, he is captured by the North Vietnamese army and taken to a village. American planes attack with napam or jellied gasoline bombs. This pilot sees a 12-year old girl burned to death. After he is rescued, he leaves the US Air Force. He goes to live alone in the Alaska wilderness in a cabin. Years later, the CIA hatches a plan to steal the most advanced Soviet fighter. As luck would have it, Gant is the identical twin of the Russian test pilot and he speaks Russian. A giant helicopter appears in front of his cabin one day. A few weeks later he is in Moscow. He manages to steal the Russian plane. The escape is full of missiles flying and plane chases. Of more interest is what happens with Gant. He is no macho hero. He vomits in the cockpit. He passes out. He has flash backs to Vietnam. He constantly had to fight fear and doubt. He does not believe that he will make it. At the very end when he approaches an RAF base in Scotland and drops the landing gear, I was throwing up the book and cheering. It was not because Gant had defeated the Russians. It was because he had defeated himself!

At the end, all of us have doubts and fears or we would not be human. Learning to overcome these things is what often separates winners from losers. Almost two years ago, I left a soft corporate job I had had for eight years. I could have stayed there until I retired. Instead I decided to go out on my own. I had an original idea. I designed a nice website. (www.waltradecc.com) I decided to be a trading company that took on tough assignments in difficult places where other people would not go. My first project was in Zimbabwee. It started out on an optimnistic note. Then the Mugabe political situation shut everything down. At the end of last year I had to write off the whole investment. Later when Morgan Tsvangirai came to power, things came back to life and this deal now has some great hope.

My second project was in Colombia. I joined forces with an incredible man who had been my group president at Occidental Petroleum decades before. He is an incredible man in his own right. He graduated from London School of Economics. He spent a tour as an officer in the British Special Boat Services. His career was intough places all over the world doing the impossible many times. In the 1980's, he met a Colombian woman from an "old money" family. He fell in love and moved to Bogota. At one point para-military guerillas kidnapped him for a ransom. During his 91 day incarceration, one of the female guerillas took a knife and started playing games with him. Her knife left him blind in one eye. Despite this horrific injury, Colin escaped from the guerilla and made his way back to Bogota. He is one of the few people ever to pull this off. People kidnapped there often spend years in custody including the famous politician Ingrid Bettancourt.

This man is a great visionary. He went in with a small gold mining company. He had a vision to sell its gold in North America and Europe. I went to work helping him without a salary. It was an agonizing process full of mindless bureaucracy in 5 different countries, false starts and people who disappointed us. Colin and I both caught hell from our wives because no money was coming in. I had creditors at my dooor and ringing constantly on the phone. Many times it looked like we had failed. Tomorrow our first gold shipment goes with more to follow on a weekly basis. We are also opening up a coal project. It is a great triumph against incredible odds. I feel like Mitchel Gant in the book Firefox. I had to hand opn even when I doubted myself and had great fears. At the end, I defeated my inner fears and doubts! That is more important htan the money.